


all is tenderness and laughter

by manycoloureddays



Series: Prompt Reposts [5]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-02
Updated: 2019-06-02
Packaged: 2020-04-06 10:48:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19061113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manycoloureddays/pseuds/manycoloureddays
Summary: Carol waits til the dust is settled after the final snap, but she doesn’t wait much longer than that.Or: a kiss after the world has been saved.





	all is tenderness and laughter

**Author's Note:**

> prompt fill for anon who asked for carol/maria for 'a kiss after the world has been saved'
> 
> title from Ever After (Into the Woods)

Carol waits til the dust is settled after the final snap, but she doesn’t wait much longer than that. It’s been a few weeks since she last saw Monica, although she thinks they must have spoken sometime in the last forty eight hours, she’s almost sure of it. Time always moves differently when there are intergalactic, interdimensional battles happening.

Bodies are starting to move, shake themselves off, and she can hear crying in the distance. Someone saying _no_ over and over again. All she wants is to be with her kid. That’s all she’s letting herself want. Because there is a small part of her mind that keeps wandering towards the what ifs. What if they didn’t bring everyone back? What if, after everything, after all the danger she brought to their door, they really did lose her to the random whim of the Soul Stone? What if, after five years, she actually has to let go?

Carol shakes herself, and grabs the attention of a woman walking past. There are so many people here, and she barely knows any of them. It’s like 1995 all over again.   

‘Sorry, I don’t know your name? You’re the one with the wings, right?’ 

‘That’s me. Hope,’ she says, holding out her hand. Carol shakes.

‘I’m Carol. Look, I know I won’t be the only one, but there are people I need to check on, and I don’t have a way of contacting them from here…’

She hasn’t even made her way through her explanation before Hope is nodding, and chivvying her away from the nearest group of people, although she can’t possibly know which direction Carol needs to go. ‘You go. We’ve got this. As long as someone here knows how to get in touch with you, I’m sure no one will mind.’

Before she can tamp down on the instinct, Carol thinks of the last five years worth of holo-conference calls with Natasha. Just another person she’ll never see again. It never gets easier. She swallows. ‘Rogers can track me down if you need me.’ Hope nods, and her wings pop out, ready to pass the message on. She looks at Carol quizzically when she doesn’t leave. Carol reaches out, puts her hand on Hope’s shoulder. ‘Thank you. For the assist earlier.’

‘My pleasure,’ Hope grins, and her eyes crinkle, but there’s a sharpness there too. They’d probably get along. Carol hopes she gets the chance to find out. She just nods, and kicks off the ground. Reality crackles golden around her, and the continent is tiny again. She breathes the thinning air in deep, turns and heads for home.

Louisiana isn’t far. Relatively speaking.

 

***

There are voices in the kitchen. It isn’t unusual, Monica’s made her a grandmother in a body that still looks thirty, and while Carol herself isn’t that social, her family is. But there is a softness, a cadence to the voice she can barely hear that make her heart clench. Her vision blurs. She flew all this way and can’t make her feet move the last few metres.

One voice - her voice - gets fainter as she moves further through the kitchen. Carol hears the bathroom door shut faintly, through the rushing sound of her heart in her ears.

The screen door slams shut behind her. Carol hears a chair scraping on the tiles and winces. But she still can’t make herself move.

Monica sticks her head around the door. Her eyes are red, but she is grinning. Her face alight and almost blinding. Carol drags air into her lungs, not quite ready to let out the laughter bubbling up inside her.

‘It’s Mom … ‘ Monica shakes her head, like there aren’t any other words that matter. And really, after five years, Carol supposes she must be right. She forces herself further into the house, reaching for her daughter. She wipes the tears from the corners of Monica’s eyes, still not used to finding crow’s feet there. But her Lieutenant Trouble didn’t travel through space with her enough to slow down the aging process. At this rate they’ll come to a time when she looks old enough to be Carol and Maria’s mother.

She pulls Monica in for a too tight hug; Monica bent down at a slightly awkward angle, one or both of them is shaking with tears, the weight of five years of shared grief, and Carol feels the exhaustion hit her all at once.

There is the sound of the toilet flushing, the tap running, and then footsteps.

‘Monica?’ Maria calls. And _god_ , Carol has missed her voice.

Monica pulls away from the hug, and pushes Carol down the hall. She shakes her head when Carol reaches for her hand. ‘You go. I’ve had hours with her, and I’ll have hours more. You should see her by yourself. Besides, I may be thirty nine, but if you two start making out I might never recover.’

Carol snorts. ‘If we didn’t make out, you’d worry yourself sick about the state of our relationship. You know you would.’

‘Just promise I’m not going to walk in on something I don’t want to see.’

‘Yeah, yeah, I promise.’

 

When Carol walks into the kitchen, Maria has her back to the hallway. Carol pauses in the doorway for a moment. Not even that first moment of recognition in 1995 can compare to walking into the kitchen and seeing Maria, looking like no time has passed at all. This must be how she felt when she’d walked around the plane and found Carol, six years dead with no memories.

‘You’re real.’ It’s nonsensical, and Carol will kick herself for it later, because there are definitely cooler ways to greet your wife after she’s been dead for five years.

Maria startles. She was probably expecting Monica. She turns around, her eyes filling with tears of her own, and at this rate there will be enough salt water in the house to fill a small sea. ‘You cut your hair.’

And then Carol is across the room, her face tucked into Maria’s shoulder. It has been five years since Thanos took this from her, but it has been longer still since she was in Maria’s arms. Six years, ten months, nine days, and about five hours, if she had to guess. She breathes in.

She tries to pull back, to look at Maria’s face, to start talking, to kiss her, but Maria shakes her head. ‘Not yet. You smell disgusting, but I just want to stay here for a minute.’

Carol acquiesces, but turns her slightly to try and smell herself, and, ‘Ugh. Gross. I stink. How are you hugging me right now?’ Maria laughs. ‘No seriously. Ugh. I smell like smoke and sweat and a little like death.’ She wriggles out of Maria’s arms, her face twisted up so she doesn’t have to smell herself anymore. ‘How did I not notice? I should have showered.’

‘Honestly, baby, after all this time, I’m really glad you didn’t.’

Carol blinks at the endearment. ‘You must really love me, huh?’

Maria just reaches out, beaming through the tears that are no longer running down her cheeks. Carol laces their fingers together, and lets Maria drag her in close. She wraps Maria’s arms around her waist, eyes falling to Maria’s mouth.

Maria smirks. ‘Well, c’mon Danvers. Are you going to kiss me, or what?’

Not one to shy away from a challenge, Carol does. She leans forward and kisses her wife for the first time in six years. She takes a moment to think, _screw the universe, I’m never leaving her again,_ before has other more important things to occupy her mind. It starts off a soft brush of mouths. But six years is a long time, and it isn’t the first time they’ve been apart for that long. Carol parts her lips and Maria groans, and pretty soon Maria’s dragging her fingernails through the short hairs at the back of Carol’s head and Carol is holding onto Maria’s hips tight enough to worry about leaving bruises.

Carol pulls back, but only far enough to rest their foreheads together. They’re both breathing heavy. Maria presses her lips to the tip of Carol’s nose, and she feels the warmth of it spread through her body. Her wife is home. She’s home. She’s _home._

‘Thanks for saving me,’ Maria whispers.

‘It wasn’t just me,’ Carol whispers back. But they have all the time in the world to talk about everything that Carol would rather forget about right now, and she’s suddenly having trouble keeping her eyes open. ‘And besides, you know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.’

‘Good. Then you can get in the bath before you fall asleep standing and you have to smell like that until tomorrow.’

Carol yawns. ‘Only if you join me. Otherwise I might drown.’ _Otherwise I might fall asleep and forget you’re really here._

But Maria’s always heard what Carol leaves unsaid. She leans in and kisses Carol again.  ‘I could be persuaded.’

 


End file.
